Review and images by JimoAi; edited by bmathison1972
The Kidako moray (Gymnothorax kidako) is a species of moray eel inhabiting coral reefs in subtropical and tropical seas around western to central Ocean Pacific area from Taiwan to Polynesia, including Hawaii, and from south Japan and Korea to New Caledonia. It is a medium-sized fish, reaching lengths of 91 cm long and featuring a brownish color with white spots (similar to the snowflake moray) on its head, body, and fins. It also has a pattern of blotches all over its body which continues onto its tail. However, some of the blotches disappear as they get closer to the tail. The snout and chin are brown with yellow streaks. Unlike most other morays, this species is more active during the day, feeding on fish and cephalopods. Like other morays, this species features a second set of jaws used to drag food into the back of its mouth and reducing the chance for prey to escape. Despite their fearsome appearance, they are normally shy and wary of human divers unless provoked, and they are a delicacy in Japan. Natural predators includes larger fish like sharks. This moray seems to be the most-represented moray in Japan due to it’s Japanese-like name; it has a heavy prominence in marine animal media in Japan, sometimes being labelled simple as a ‘moray eel’.
About the figure: this eel measures roughly 13 cm stretched out, putting it at a scale of 1:7. The figure is sculpted curled up against live to rock which it is connected via pegs. While it is removable from the rocky base, it is not recommended as the pegs connecting the eel to the rock are pretty large, unless you use and pocket knife to cut, file, and paint over the extruded parts. The eel features some fine wrinkles in which it is curved and under the chin as well as miniscule fin rays on the dorsal fin. As with all morays, the elongated dorsal fin goes from the head all the way to the anal fins. The nostrils are sculpted being slightly extended from the snout and finely-sculpted teeth are present, including a row from the second set of jaws. The circular gills on either side are also sculpted. The live rock features many bumps and ridges to simulate real ocean rock and is painted in a greenish grey color with some orange spots simulating red algae. It also comes with a bottlecap base (not shown here), from which it is removable.
For the color scheme, the main body is a light yellow color decorated with a brown airbrush from the top of the snout, dorsal fin, and to the tip of the tail. Black stripes adorn the animal from the eye to the tip of the tail; however, the real animal has more numerous and jagged brownish patterning instead. There’s also yellow and black speckling all over the body, which I barely see on specimens; instead, it should be brown like the stripes. The eye is painted white with a glossy black pupil and the teeth are carefully painted white. I’d like to point out it’s more akin to an illustration of a specimen rather than the common color scheme of the actual eel.
Overall, I think this is still a decent eel figure, a group which we barely get figures of nowadays. There is another figure of this species by Toys Spirits with better striping, but the figure is weaker in almost every other aspect overall. This figure was first released by Kaiyodo in 2005 as part of the second part of the Enoshima Aquarium series and rereleased in 2015 alongside a baby green sea turtle, Risso’s dolphin, giant isopod, sardine, moon jelly, Humboldt penguin, and bottlenose dolphin. So despite being retired, it’s still relatively available for a low to moderate price point, although there is a rare gold version going for quite a lot more.
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